Method for determining a control object whose distance from the following vehicle is measured, the distance between the control object and a following vehicle being adjusted to a desired distance if the control object is situated in an expected traveling corridor of the following vehicle, and an arrangement for carrying out the method.
In automatic speed and distance control systems for detecting the traffic situation, it is customary to predict a traveling corridor of the motor vehicle with the aid of signals from yaw rate sensors or transverse acceleration sensors. In other words, these systems ascertain the location at which the vehicle will stay after a predetermined period of time has elapsed, and which vehicles traveling ahead will stay in the traveling corridor of the system'vehicle.
For distance-controlled traveling, the control object is determined from the objects determined by the radar and from the calculated traveling corridor. This object is used for distance control purposes by a distance control device in the form of a series-path controller. The vehicle which is the nearest one that stays in the predicted traveling corridor is identified as the control object.
In this case, the traveling corridor is an assumption projected into the future in which the vehicle travels in the direction prescribed by the radius that has been determined. If this control object then leaves the predicted traveling corridor it is no longer identified as the control object.
That also applies to borderline situations such as cornering or skidding of the vehicle.